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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many times a prisoner from each prison has been airlifted to receive medical attention in each of the last five years.

Ben Gummer

This information is not collected centrally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times (a) gold, (b) silver and (c) bronze command suites were opened in each prison in each of the last three years.

Andrew Selous

Violence in prisons has increased in recent years. The nature of offenders currently in custody and the widespread availability of new psychoactive substances have both contributed to making prisons less safe. There is no single, simple solution to the problems we face but we are making progress.

We have launched a two year Violence Reduction project to help us to gain a better understanding of the causes and characteristics of violence in prisons and to strengthen the handling of this. We are also trialing the use of body worn cameras in prisons, training sniffer dogs to detect new psychoactive substances and have made it an offence to smuggle new psychoactive substances into prison. However, ultimately the only way to reduce violence in our prisons is to give governors and those who work in prisons the tools necessary to more effectively reform and rehabilitate offenders, which we are determined to see through.

The safety of staff and prisoners is a priority. Gold Command is opened in order to deal with incidents as quickly and safely as possible. Not all incidents turn out to be serious, but Gold Command is opened as a precaution when incidents are regarded as potentially serious.

Tables 1, 2 and 3 show the number of times Gold Command has been opened in each of the past three years by prison.

The decision to open Silver Command is made at the local level. Data regarding Silver Command openings is not held centrally, and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

There is no “Bronze Command suite” within NOMS incident response procedures.

Table 1: Number of times Gold Command Suite opened by prison in 2013

Table 2: Number of times Gold Command Suite opened by prison in 2014

Table 3: Number of times Gold Command Suite opened by prison in 2015

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many miscellaneous items as recorded by the Incident Report System were confiscated in each prison in the last 12 months.

Andrew Selous

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners complained about an attack by rats in the last five years.

Andrew Selous

This information is not held centrally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been paid in compensation to prisoners in the last 12 months.

Andrew Selous

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. We robustly defend all cases and over the last three years have successfully defended two thirds of claims from prisoners.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many hostage situations have arisen in each prison and youth facility in each month since March 2014.

Andrew Selous

The vast majority of incidents are minor in nature and resolved quickly and professionally without injury, damage or disruption to the running of the prison. Each incident is investigated fully to ensure lessons are learnt and best practice in managing incidents is shared across NOMS.

Many incidents at height are relatively short in duration, lasting less than 15 minutes, and take place on netting or over railings. Hostage incidents are relatively rare and in many cases of hostage taking collusion between the perpetrator and victim is suspected. We do not tolerate violence or disorder in our prisons. Prisoners who take part in violent incidents can be referred to the police for prosecution or receive additional time on their sentences following internal adjudication.

The tables attached provide numbers of incidents at height and hostage incidents in each month between March 2014 and December 2015 and broken down by establishment.

Note: These figures have been drawn from the NOMS Incident Reporting System. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns but the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although the figures are shown to the last case the figures may not be accurate to that level.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many incidents at height have taken place in each prison in each month since March 2014.

Andrew Selous

The vast majority of incidents are minor in nature and resolved quickly and professionally without injury, damage or disruption to the running of the prison. Each incident is investigated fully to ensure lessons are learnt and best practice in managing incidents is shared across NOMS.

Many incidents at height are relatively short in duration, lasting less than 15 minutes, and take place on netting or over railings. Hostage incidents are relatively rare and in many cases of hostage taking collusion between the perpetrator and victim is suspected. We do not tolerate violence or disorder in our prisons. Prisoners who take part in violent incidents can be referred to the police for prosecution or receive additional time on their sentences following internal adjudication.

The tables attached provide numbers of incidents at height and hostage incidents in each month between March 2014 and December 2015 and broken down by establishment.

Note: These figures have been drawn from the NOMS Incident Reporting System. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns but the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although the figures are shown to the last case the figures may not be accurate to that level.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many complaints his Department received about the standard of its recent consultation document on court closures.

Mr Shailesh Vara

There has been one complaint about the standard of the recent consultation on the provision of court and tribunal estate in England and Wales.

The complaint, received by email, was from a member of the judiciary and related to St Alban’s County Court. It noted that the consultation document was inaccurate as it stated that no enabling work was required at the receiving court, Watford County Court. On investigation, it was determined that some enabling work would be required. The written response to the complaint corrected this inaccuracy. The published consultation response document was updated to present corrected information.

During the consultation process we were notified about inaccuracies in the consultation documents. These have all been corrected in the published response documents. All decisions were based on correct information together with the careful consideration of the consultation responses.

The consultation response is available online at www.gov.uk/moj.

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